John Adams’ new opera about the nuclear bomb has a debut date at San Francisco Opera. “I basically don’t have much interest in opera. But I do think it’s an art form that can grapple with the deepest, most unknowable subjects. ‘Doctor Atomic’ is about that moment in history, July 6, 1945, when we went from being a species that inhabited the planet along with other species and with the flip of a switch became capable of destroying it.”